


roses

by cydbys



Category: Victorious
Genre: F/F, Getting Together, Metaphors, Sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 06:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12699255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cydbys/pseuds/cydbys
Summary: Jade's play is about a girl and a monster, but their reflections look a lot like Tori and herself.





	roses

When Jade considers herself, it's in various shades of monstrous and hideous and violent. She's writing a play now- one that's all blood and guts- and laughs at the way Tori flinches when she reads her first draft of it. 

"It's good." Tori says when she turns the last page. Jade quits restlessly twirling the straw in her coffee around and really looks at her. "I think it would be cool if..." Jade recognizes that look. It's her afraid-Jade-will-think-she's-stupid look. Jade watches her throat work up the courage. "It could be cool if you used roses, where the blood and all should be." 

"Okay." Jade says, and that's as close to a "Good idea" as Tori will get. She beams across the coffee shop table, anyway. 

She'd written the part of Addison for Tori, of course. She auditions every girl who signs up anyway, just to make it less obvious. Maybe she stabs the thumb tack holding the cast list into place with a little more anger than necessary, but that's just who she is. Tori's all-caps name is right under her finger. It's a little like whatever magic ink Tori's printed her name onto Jade's heart with. All caps, star of the show. 

Jade wears more black than she has in years to the first practice, and isn't foolish enough to pretend it isn't battle armor. She's the monster and she's the director. Those lines are only going to get more blurred. There's a scene in there- one of the very last- where the monster has Addison pinned, and she starts bleeding rose petals. In the script, the monster rips her throat with its teeth. There's something about it- surrounded by lights and cast mates, sinking her teeth into Tori's neck... 

It's too raw. Too close to where her mind drifted to when writing the scene. Tori asks if they can run through it later, and Jade says yes without thinking about it enough. She hates seeing Tori in her bedroom- hates the bit of rightness surrounding her edges. When they run through the scene, Jade can't make her mouth get that close to Tori's neck. Instead, she sinks to her knees. Tori holds the character, leaning forward and letting imaginary rose petals drift out of an imaginary gash in her stomach. 

Jade pretend to catch them, between her teeth. It's still too raw nerve intimate- the eye contact, the way Tori sinks down onto her knees in front of her when she's bled enough and gasped to match it. Jade says it without remembering her lines- "I'm sorry." 

"What are you sorry for?" She's Tori-Addison-Tori-Both. 

"Writing you into my plays and killing you off. Making you bleed flowers. Feeling." 

"You're sorry for feeling?" And that's all Tori, because Jade didn't give Addison any bite. Addison was all bitten. 

Jade can't answer. Tori doesn't make her. 

"Jade, you don't have to be sorry for your feelings. Not if they're about me, not ever." 

"Shut up!" Maybe the monster could take it, but Jade can't. She doesn't speak this blunt, metaphor lacking language. 

"Shut up! You don't get to act like it's alright that I'm in love with you. You're supposed to hate me." 

"Just because that's how you write me in your plays doesn't mean that's how I feel." 

Jade goes for the throat, faking like she's going to make it hurt. Tori stays brave, stays... trusting. Jade kisses her like she has something to prove, and maybe she does. She rewrites the final scenes of her play, anyways.


End file.
